Chapter 1: The Next Day

It is past the crack of dawn when the writer sits down to work. It feels like forever since they had last sat down to work. (Click here for Flashback)

She intended to begin earlier on this very special day, but life happened and kept her away. Then, this morning, she took a few extra minutes of necessary sleep. And then there was yoga. 

The writer has her priorities.

Now the writer sits at a table near the entrance of the library. There is a half-finished cup of coffee near a half-page of notes she just made during a brief lit review. It was for a book she had been carrying around for a week without giving it any time.

The inattentiveness was not from neglect; it was simply timing. 

This morning there is time. 

And it is the most perfect of times.

The book is titled Making Natural Knowledge: Constructivism and the History of Science (W/ a new preface). The copy she possesses was published in 2005 by the University of Chicago Press. Cambridge University Press published the first edition in 1998 for Cambridge's History of Science series.   

The writer learned all this information before getting to the table of contents and the new preface composed for the new edition. To have a book republished in so short a time reveals its importance.

The book represents a corner piece of intellectual thought supporting her thesis for the writer. More on this later.

The book is written by a cat named Jan Golinski. The author is not really a cat but a historian. The writer may never meet this someone, but that is okay. They know a fragment of Golinski from the transmission of themselves through the pages of his book. 

And this was a book that the writer had spent a lot of time with this past spring. As they flip through the pages, they see checkmarks and stars in the margins. The text itself is underlined and marked up.

These guideposts are amazing! 

The writer was once the researcher. They sat in a different body then; wore a different hat. They inhabited an office that they will never see again. The researcher aspired one day to be a writer. Six months ago, when the first conversations with Golinski took place, the transformation never manifested.

There was still much work to do for the transformation between researcher and writer to take place!

And it did, eventually. Now, the stars, checkmarks, and lines underlining specific words act as guideposts for the writer. Gifts left by their past selves. 

But the writer is cautious about proceeding with these gifts. 

The writer understands her job is not to extract words and ideas. She does not want to lift them from one source and simply transplant them into her work as intellectual resources. Their job is to listen to the past conversation, contemplating what was being said and why. Her job is to appreciate how much work has been accomplished. First by Golinski and then between Golinski and the researcher.

The difference between extraction and listening may seem trivial, but there is a world of difference. The differences lie in intention and mindfulness. It is about the affective (emotional/passionate) energy being imbued into the source by the author and the researcher. The action of emotional engagement either overlays the researcher's thoughts over the original information (extractive) or becomes entwined with the original information to create a conversation based on consent (listening). 

The emotional energy—love and grace—imbues a power into the singular book that no other copy of Making Natural Knowledge holds. 

The writer believes that this energy is one way that our world is magic.

And as the writer finishes her coffee and shuts the book to move further into the library, another page of the writer's story is complete. 

The page flips to the next chapter.